Nothing to say

I installed Ubuntu on the laptop today. Wireless drivers installed automatically. The trackpad works perfectly, including gestures (scroll on the right margin, 3finger tap = right-click). It is gorgeous and awesome. It has already updated a few things. I have installed all my Firefox extensions. The whole thing went flawlessly. I am thrilled.

I am eager to figure out a few things, and gain more productivity, but for web-based activities, I’m already back to normal speed. The trackpad is more sensitive by default. I could adjust it, but it gets me across the screen faster without being TOO sensitive (now that I’m acclimated). I may figure out something fun to alias the windows key to (maybe open Firefox of the terminal). I have a lot to learn about terminal commands, and other things I can do. I will learn more keyboard shortcuts and the like. Oh, and I need to figure out how to backup my DVDs here. Should I run Wine (a windows emulator) and then run my 2 old backup programs, or should I find something new? I’ve some more reading to do, and will probably test a few things out before I’m happy. I also need to get used to the office software, since I won’t be using Microsoft Office on this. Will I be happy with OpenOffice, or Google Docs and Spreadsheets? We’ll see. Maybe I’ll type my school papers wherever, and then format them for printing in Word on a PC.

I’m just happy to finally be rid of Windows on this machine. Huzzah!

I have been going CRAZY since last Thursday. For the last two Thursdays, I’ve been going to see my ENT for post-operation visits. He rips a bunch of nasty crud out of my nose, talks to me about it, and then sends me on my way feeling a LOT better and breathing a lot easier. Literally.

The first week, it was like, crusty scabs, basically. Gross, but better to get them out than have them stay in there. He told me about a couple of little sponges that he left in my nose just in case my nose tried to close up with scar tissue. Their purpose was to prevent that, and then dissolve. He was letting me know, because when they start to dissolve and come out, he didn’t want me to freak out.

Last week, he extracted the last bit of sponge as well as a lot of … thick, wet snot. It was less bloody than the week before, and didn’t feel quite as good to be rid of as the previous week, but still very, very good. The incredibly remarkable thing is that on my way out, through the waiting room, I smelled it. I smelled the room.

You know when you walk into an unfamiliar home, and you notice its distinctive smell? I haven’t noticed that in years. It’s way too subtle for me to have noticed since the operation - during which time I could only catch really strong scents, and found a lot more to appreciate in my food. After that visit, though, I was smelling entirely new things. Still entranced by this significant change, I walked down the stairs. When I reached the bottom and opened the door, I was overwhelmed by cinnamon, coffee, and freshly baked bread. It had been years. I couldn’t believe how incredible it was. Au Bon Pain has never been such a welcome sight. It has never been a scent, welcome or otherwise, for me. I can’t even describe the feeling. All I can tell you to convey the serious amazement and pleasure I was experiencing is this: I started getting light-headed from all the excessive breathing I was doing to keep the scents passing through my nose.

Since then, I have smelled Kia’s hair and breath (no halitosis! Thank goodness!), cooking white rice (AMAZING!!), cardamom (I raided the spices!), chocolate, soup, grilled chicken, cut grass, a horrendous assault of colognes and perfumes (vile dolphin mall!!), and so many other things too amazing to understand.

My ENT/Surgeon is amazing. The gift of scent is amazing. White Rice is amazing. Kia is amazing. Life is amazing.

I just wanted to share.

Kia is between Portland (for a forum) and SLC, UT (for a family visit) from about the middle of last week til about the middle of this week.  Over the weekend, she flew my best friend, Kit, down for a visit.  We had a great weekend, and got to catch up on a lot of talking.

It occurs to me that after nearly 15 years of friendship, I have very few good pictures of her.  So I took quite a lot this weekend.  The better selections from the visit have been uploaded to my Zooomr account.

What is Zooomr?  Well, let me put it this way:

flickr + fun toys - intuitive functionality - speed - reliability - upload restrictions - file limits = zooomr

The name is a perfect example.  Flickr dropped the er and went with just an r.  Fair.  Zooomr copied that formula and jammed an extra vowel in their name.  Flickr offers photo hosting with comments, descriptions, notes, views, rotation, different sizes, tags, and EXIF data.  Zooomr copied that formula and crammed in geotagging.  I figure flickr will be adding geotagging soon, but I’m already over my file limit, and don’t want to pay for more (because I already pay for my own site … just too lazy to install and figure out Gallery…)  Fortunately, they probably won’t feel compelled to change their name to fliiiiiiiickr.

Oh, right.  Here is my page.

Kurt Vonnegut passed away yesterday from head injuries he sustained in a fall at his home. He is my favorite author and one of my heros.

He wrote for “In These Times” magazine.

This is a big deal. It’s the first time I’ve sneezed since the sinus surgery. All the packing is out, and I’m not allowed to sniffle or blow my nose. There are clots all over the place in my sinuses, and if I upset one of them, I could hemmorhage and bleed all over myself. That would be bad. Holding on a sneeze or sneezing through my nose would be too much force on the blood vessels and clots up there, and could be seriously bad, so I have orders to sneeze in my mouth open. As a result, I’ve been afraid of sneezing at all.

I just sneezed, though, and everything is fine. My nose is ok.

In fact, today is my first day with the gauze removed. I’ve been taping gauze under my nose like 23hrs a day since I got home, often with a mask over it to hide the pinkness from unsuspecting onlookers. Nobody wants to see my blood while they’re eating lunch, you know. So today I’m gauze-free and loving it. I gave Kia a kiss when I left. I drove all the way to work. I’ve been chatting with coworkers. I’ve been just sitting dutifully at my desk, typing away, and there are no problems. My nose was a little runny over lunch, so I had to wipe a few times, but I went to lunch with a friend who is also a nurse, so it was no big deal.

We went to Panera, in fact. I had a big sandwich and a bowl of soup. Not a half sandwich pick2, mind you. No, I ate a lot of damn food. And it was awesome. My friend ordered my favorite sandwich there, but they gave her the wrong one. She ended up with a Panini, and can’t have cheese, so she couldn’t eat it. I had the cashier fix it, and they let us keep the wrong sandwich, so I’ve got that in a bag for later. SO MUCH FOOD! I’m thrilled. It’s the only way I’m going to make it through the day. I had two donuts, a cup of organic blueberry yogurt, coffee, and I think something else for breakfast. I’ve been consistently eating like 30-50% more food each meal since the surgery-nausea dissipated. Piggy :8)

Life is great.

I was discharged from the hospital today around 9am. The surgery went well, and my otolaryngologist/surgeon removed all my polyps and found one sinus packed with fluid. He was completely successful at removing everything, and spoke with Kia afterwards. She was so good to me through the whole thing.

So I’m home and happy and healthy now. Life is good.

Next up is the fold. I’m going to go through a sort of play-by-play of the surgery for anyone who is interested, but it will include PICTURES. If you don’t like the sight of blood, don’t look. Seriously. Some of them are kind of gross.

Ok, there’s no way to do just partial posts here, and then have a click for a full thing. And I’m kinda cloudy-headed. So in the interest of not totally grossing everyone out, you get no pics.

Cheers.

I want a Nikon D40 and THIS!!

Thanks!

So I went to the Otolaryngologyst, Dr Dougherty, and he says that I still need the surgery, because the antibiotics alone won’t do it. I was in a fair amount of doubt, because my PCP had told me, essentially, that if the polyps go away, they’re as gone as if they were never there. So he called Friday morning, the day of my appointment with the ENT, and told me that the blood test results were in and my white cell count was “elevated” so he wants me back on Levaquin after the surgery. Ok.

After meeting with the PCP, I was rapidly leaning towards “no”, but I spoke with Kia that evening, and she told me what her dad (who has had the surgery) said. “Do it.”

So I’m doing it. The appointment is this Friday, the 6th.

In other news, Kia changed my wallpaper for April Fools. I think I got off pretty easy (OH DOUBLE ENTENDRE!)

Damn, that girl’s funny. The best part is that she had to make me minimize all my windows to see it, because I didn’t bother to check the desktop all day.